Meanwhile, just like that uncle we don't care for who continues to stuff his face with turkey and stuffing while we argue with our brothers and sisters over Thanksgiving dinner, our opposition continues to sit back and enjoy the feast of material we are giving them with this public family food fight. It needs to be rethought!

**Don't get us wrong in regards to our earlier statement. Just like we understand how sibling rivalry can drive one to mashed potato-tossing, we also fully understand why this situation has heated up so many (including us). It's just the public spectacle part that we think could be handled a little better.

Your thoughts

Indeed.

Because family secrets are so much better than dealing with the issues openly.

The infighting we see spreading across the GLBT communities will intensify when the Democrats win in 2008. It’s a fight that’s been brewing since the Reagan era. It concerns the most important issues our movement faces. And it's not likely to end anytime soon. Nor is it unhealthy in the least. We need a dustup or two to get back on track.

Our movement will never speak with one voice although we should unite in single issue campaigns whenever we can. We’re millions strong but just as divided as the society we sprang from; class, color, nationality, age, language, immigrant or not, gay, lesbian, bisexual, left, right - all we have in common is that we’re under the thumb of the bigots, mistreated, kept in a second calls status and from childhood harassed, pushed around and once in a great while murdered.

This particular fight is an expression of what draws us apart most sharply. We have an old school right wing composed of Stonewall Democrats, Log Cabin Republicans and groups like the HRC who want to work the system and look forward to patiently piling one reform on top of another. And we have a left wing of intransigent militant activists that are just beginning to work out their strategy but at every point it will mirror the truth that the system can't be reformed because it's fracturing and splintering; society is literally going to be shaken until it collapses and has to be rebuilt.

That happened in 1776 and 1860 and you can hear the shudders and rumbles of a new social order in the making.

This fight will play out over the next several years and its solution will determine our future. What ever ruckus it causes is healthy for us and what the totalitarian christians think of us is not important.

Posted by: Bill Perdue | Oct 4, 2007 11:26:17 AM

Cindi: Don't misunderstand. Nobody is suggesting "family secrets." These things absolutely need to be discussed. However, the public back-and-forths are not always the best ways to do so.

Is there a better, private forum?

Cindi: It's not about one specific forum. It's about the strategic ways we use all of our our forums. And I absolutely think our community could learn a thing or two about the ways we work to get on the same page.

Don't forget about Outright Libertarians' position on ENDA, which further makes us seem more splintered.

I, myself, having libertarian leanings have a little trouble with this issue, because I'm against it in principle, yet can't deny that this would curb a lot of unfair causes of unemployment. I think, in this end, it's a choice between the lesser of two evils.